The British government is, at last, moving to reform the country’s notorious libel law, which has long made London a magnet for frivolous lawsuits. The reform proposal presented to Parliament last week by Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, is far from perfect but represents a reasonable first effort to change a law regarded as so unfair that it has been condemned by the United Nations. Last summer, President Obama signed a bill blocking enforcement of British libel judgments in American courts.

SIR Fred Goodwin was criticised last night after a super-injunction to stop people calling him a banker backfired and sparked an outpouring of ridicule online.

The floodgates were opened when a backbench Liberal Democrat MP used parliamentary privilege to reveal that the former banker had won a court order banning use of the term – and stopping the media even reporting on the ban.